School Matinee Series

The Hop’s 2019/20 School Matinee Series features world-touring artists and companies that combine cultures and artistic disciplines in exciting ways. Learn through the arts about global issues, American history, and the possibilities of snow and circus. Detailed study guides will accompany each show starting this summer.

Sankofa DanzafroThe City of Others

Wed, Sep 25, 10 am
Grades: 6–12

From Colombia, a country with over five million citizens of African descent, Sankofa Danzafro showcases powerful Afro-Colombian and contemporary dance theater with live drumming and singing. The City of Others puts a human face on issues of wealth, gender, sexual orientation and lack of opportunity affecting minority communities in Colombia. Vividly depicting modern-day urban struggle and resilience, the young dancers in Sankofa draw on movement styles including capoeira, hip-hop and African dance.

This exuberant show retells one of Mozart’s best-loved operas through South African folk tales, dance and music. Founded in 2000, Isango has won international acclaim for productions that re-imagine theater classics in a South African setting. In Impempe Yomlingo (“magic flute” in the South African language of Xhosa), Mozart’s score is played by an orchestra of marimbas, and full-throated operatic arias are interspersed with vibrant South African dance. Fascinating parallels are found between the European story told by the 18th-century libretto and a traditional Tsonga tale. The two dozen cast members all sing, dance and play instruments in this joyous, fast-paced adaptation.

connectionsMusic, Theater, South African & African Studies

Flip FabriqueBlizzard

Fri, Dec 6, 10 am
Grades: 1–8

Part of the thriving nouveau cirque scene of our neighbors to the north, Flip Fabrique is a young troupe at the peak of their talents as professional circus performers. Blending storytelling, theatricality, fabulous athletic feats and sheer fun, they play with a subject Canadians know well: winter! With live music underscoring the brilliant visual effects, Blizzard is a madcap, poetic journey through the season.

connectionsDance, Theater, Music, Physical Education

DeLanna StudiAnd So We Walked

Fri, Jan 10, 10 am
Grades: 6–12

The forced march of an estimated 100,000 Native Americans from the Southeastern United States to west of the Mississippi River is called the Trail of Tears. Some 15,000 died on the 5,000-mile journey west. Among the survivors were ancestors of award-winning Cherokee writer and performer DeLanna Studi. And So We Walked is Studi’s frank, heartwarming and inspiring solo show about walking with her father along a 900-mile portion of the Trail to better understand her own identity and what her ancestors endured. This multifaceted memoir draws on interviews, historical research and the artist’s personal experience to convey the complexities and conflicts with which contemporary Native Americans struggle.

This clever compilation of whimsical Eric Carle classics mirrors the beloved writer/illustrator’s evocative storytelling and art. Mermaid’s large-scale puppets and original music “earn coos of delight from adults as well as kids” (Los Angeles Times). Illuminated with “black-light” technology, the brightly colored puppets move across the black background as if Carle’s color-saturated tissue-paper illustrations hopped from page to stage.

connectionsTheater, Science, Art, Reading Comprehension

Imani WindsRhythm and Melody: The Building Blocks of Music

Wed, Apr 1, 10 am
Grades: 6–8

Grammy-nominated wind quintet Imani Winds gracefully navigates between classical, jazz and world music idioms. In their quest to encourage more people to enjoy and play classical music, they perform everywhere from the world’s leading concert stages to elementary school classrooms. This program explores engaging musical concepts through music including African call-and-response, Afro-Cuban, Klezmer and contemporary classical styles.

Inflatable rafts on the Mediterranean. Dark holds of cargo trucks. Family photos wrapped carefully in a backpack that crosses border checkpoints. These are some of the ways in which the world is alive with movement and migration in Cartography, by author and illustrator Christopher Myers and theater artist Kaneza Schaal. Created from collaborations with young refugees around the world, Cartography fuses map-making, dance, film and sound-sensor technology to explore the tragedy and wonder of lives in motion. From the effects of climate change to war and poverty, this powerful story examines the forces that send youth into the unsure waters of their future.